Almost three in five young South Africans feel that Pretoria’s name should stay the same and not be changed to Tshwane.
This is the finding of a survey conducted by consumer insights company Pondering Panda, which polled 3451 respondents between the ages of 18 and 34, across South Africa. 58% felt Pretoria’s name should stay the same, 33% felt it should be changed, and 10% were unable to decide.
Support for changing Pretoria’s name varied among race groups. While the majority of young black South Africans (52%) felt Pretoria’s name should stay the same, 38% felt it should be changed to Tshwane. In contrast, about 4 in 5 young whites, coloureds and indians were opposed to the name change.
57% of respondents from Gauteng felt Pretoria’s name should stay the same, compared to 35% who felt it should be changed. People from the Western Cape were most likely to be against the name-change, with 73% opposed to it.
“This survey shows that the issue of changing the names of cities is one that is controversial,” said Butch Rice of Pondering Panda.
“Yet again we see that attitudes differ markedly by race, with young black South Africans feeling very differently from non-blacks. No longer do we find differences between white South Africans and non-whites, as in the days of apartheid, but we continually see differences in attitudes between blacks and non-blacks, which is ironic in our new democracy, which was intended to change the division of our society on racial lines.”
Responses to the survey were weighted to be nationally representative of age, gender and race. Pondering Panda conducts more interviews than any other market research company in Africa.
Pondering Panda is a member of the World of Avatar group, which also owns Mxit. All interviews were conducted on cell phones with Mxit users between 8 and 11 October, 2012.
Article source: http://www.metronewspaper.co.za/2012/10/17/youth-against-pretoria-name-change/
